The Rundown: Survivor’s filming secrets, Al from MAFS greatest hits, the promo pic pecking order

Survivor contestants have made a startling revelation about a little known small luxury they get when the cameras stop filming.

The Rundown is your new weekly sneak peek behind the scenes of TV and radio.

A very well-kept Survivor secret has been uncovered with startling revelations that the show’s castaways have a few more touchpoints with civilisation than previously known.

While the show drops contestants into the wilderness with nothing but their wits, rice and the bare minimum of creature comforts, what is never talked about on the series is how contestants get to their challenge sites or tribal council.

Several contestants on this season of the show have drawn back the curtain on what we don’t see, revealing they are driven from their tribe camps to challenges in vans.

Kate ‘KJ’ Austin does her best impression of waiting at the bus stop for a late ride.

One described the vehicle as a bus and noted: “I was surprised how long we sat around in the bus. We weren’t allowed to talk at all, just sit and wait”.

It is understood that contestants have been transferred in vans between filming locations for all the Australian series of Survivor. The Australian version has been filmed in Samoa, Fiji and Cloncurry and Charters Towers in Queensland.

A show insider explained the vans were used for logistic reasons so contestants could be safely moved to where they need to be in the very remote filming locations and the time contestants stayed in the vehicles was kept as short as possible.

The contestants are shuttled around to make for more entertaining eye-catching challenges.

“They were not sitting around in airconditioning,” they said.

The US version of the show also transports contestants to challenge sites from their tribe camps.

Survivor was filmed at 13 locations around Charters Towers last year with the first tribe camp a 55 minute drive from the Charters Towers production hub and the second tribe camp located 45 minutes from the township.

Survivor star Samantha Gash said transport was a minor part of the game.

“There are always logistics involved in a game like this,” she said.

“What I can say is the experience of the play is very, very real.

“Yes, of course, we need to get to and from challenges, but it is all about, as a player, how you choose to use that time.

“Any down time I am like, ‘OK, I am going to rest’. In any downtime let your mind rest, let your body rest and have a little bit of a nanna nap.

“So it is a component of the game, but it is a very real experience for the players.”

PROMO PIC PECKING ORDER

Promotional photos are part and parcel of TV and radio; every show, every cast and every commentary team and all the associated egos are primped, preened, polished and presented for the obligatory snap to help sell the product.

But when a team is involved is there a hierarchy in place as to who sits where?

And do “strategic placements” happen?

For example, could someone who is difficult to deal with find themselves partially obscured in the back of a cast shot in a subliminal message that, while not obvious to fans or viewers, may be crystal clear to the individual that they are losing favour or have got up someone’s nose?

Media boss Craig Hutchison cheekily raised the delicate and generally unspoken issue of “promo hierarchy” on his Sounding Board podcast after spotting this year’s Channel 7 AFL commentary team photo.

Stars to the front and centre please! Channel 7’s AFL commentary team.

“The school photo is lasting, stays forever, it is really a vanity-fest, it is about where you land and how you are perceived,” Hutchison joked.

“I will tell you what happened,” he said, referencing the 7 snap.

“They only really set the big dogs and everyone else is like musical chairs, do your best.”

Hutchison surmised the photo would have been built around having Brian Taylor, James Brayshaw and Hamish McLachlan front and centre with Daisy Pearce and Abbey Holmes on either side of the three blokes.

“I reckon they were the only five placed,” he said.

His instincts were right, with a Seven source saying there was “not really any method to the madness” and that they all just grabbed a seat following their other promo shoots.

However, “strategic placements” certainly happen.

A recent reality show cast group shot had one contestant with some “personal issues” purposely placed on the fringe of the group in case they unexpectedly exited the show before filming started. If such a situation eventuated they could easily be snipped from the photo and the cast would not need to be reshot.

Sam Burgess was the star recruit on SAS: Australia last season and ended up centre of the promo pic.

In another example a well-known, high-profile host got up a full head of steam after being placed to the side of a cast promo picture for a celebrity moving and grooving show.

Their grievance was simple – they felt with their profile they should have been front and centre … and they weren’t.

Mind you, that same person also was put out to find a couple of “D-listers” in what had been promised to be an “A-list only” collection of contestants.

And what about the time on a popular celebrity reality show when two women had to be put at either ends of the cast group shot.

The reason? One of the women had a straying husband who had strayed previously with her now co-star.

Of course one of the oldest tricks in “strategic placements” is plopping a starlet in front of a not-so-svelte male co-star to hide or obscure their pot belly or dangerously stretched suit jacket button.

This sleight of hand has worked a treat for years.

MAFS SECRET SUCCESS STORY

Stupidity is going to be rewarded with MAFS party boy Al Perkins set to reap rewards for his bizarre behaviour on the monster hit dating show.

While he seemed to know little about dating, cooking, cleaning or using a washing machine Perkins sure knew how to drink from a sweaty shoe, do The Worm and perform a striptease.

MAFS viewers twigged early Perkins was going to be the life of the party on the series when he busted out the breakdancing move at his “wedding” to Samantha Moitzi.

When the couple moved in together he stared at the apartment’s washing machine like it was an alien object, having never used one before.

Al Perkins, the poor man’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Perkins slides over the table and into the hearts of larrikins across Australia.

His favourite party trick, the shoey, made its MAFS debut at the first couple’s dinner party.

Next up, he repeated his shoey trick at the dinner party to welcome the “intruder” couples to the fold.

By episode 20 he was tired of the shoey so produced a new side of entertainment.

He started by diving twice across the dinner table and then doing a striptease and pulling his jocks from his jeans.

But why stop there?

Two episodes later we find the cast at a couple’s retreat.

Clearly excited about the evening’s dinner party, Perkins did some weird worm dance at the fire pit on the patio of the luxury country estate before jumping into a nearby pond.

He tried to make up for his idiotic behaviour by writing a poem to his fed-up TV “wife”.

Al failed to woo Sam with award-worthy poetry like rhyming eye with cry.

Here is a sample of some of the prose: “It makes me sad, seeing that I let you down, I hope this week, I can turn that around,” and “You really are the apple of my eye, And it was really hard to see you cry,” and “I will also take John’s advice and learn to grow up, (and) also learn not to drink from a shoe, and instead, from a cup.”

Perkins and Moitzi have now departed Married At First Sight, but it is unlikely to be the last time the good time guy will be seen on screen.

Celebrity spinner Max Markson said there was a market for Perkins’ madness.

“Al has 60,000 followers on Instagram and he is an outrageous character. If you are loved or hated or controversial there is always a market for you,” Markson said.

“There is potential for him because of his character. As long as you can do something that is going to be different to other people and not just be a normal guy, that is what makes you interesting and will give you opportunity in reality TV.”

SAS: SHOUTING AND SWEARING

Just when you thought you had heard it all ….

SAS: Australia is a beep fest when it comes to editors covering up offensive language, but watching the uncensored version of the show, available on 7Plus, revealed just how colourful some of the words and phrases used on the unforgiving military boot camp inspired show.

The stand out comment came from Directing Staff member Clint Emerson, with the tough-talking American letting fly at celebrity contenders lagging behind in a log carry challenge.

“My grandparents f--- faster than you move and they are dead,” he yelled ………….. hit the beep button!!!.

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